As I was putting away my milking equipment yesterday morning, getting ready for another cup of tea while the milk cooled in the big stainless pan in the kitchen sink, I glanced out the dining room window in time to see our little flock of quail come barreling 
in for breakfast. Darrell sprinkles cracked corn just off the side deck when there is snow on the ground and the temperatures dip well below freezing and it has not taken long for our little covey of quail to realize where breakfast will be served! As I stood at the window with my camera trying to catch a few good pictures, more came trundling through the snow to join the feast. Top knots bobbing, little feet scratching away to garner the yellow morsels from the snow, feathers all puffed up against the cold they remind me of little old ladies and gentlemen from a different age all bundled up in overcoats on Market Day.
I called Darrell over to watch them and as we stood at the window a story he told me many years ago popped into my head. I decided I just have to share this episode from his past brought to mind by his act of feeding our little quail family.
Back in 1980 Darrell was living single and alone on his farm in Culver, just outside Bend, in an old single-wide trailer house. After finishing his morning farming chores he would make the 35 mile journey into Bend to his office to work a full day at his “regular” job as an electrical contractor, then head home to do evening chores. One early spring morning he had stopped at his big gas tank to fill his truck with petrol before heading off to work when he jumped a mother quail off her nest which she had decided to build right by the fuel tanks. It promised to be a warm day so Darrell headed off to work feeling sure mother quail would return to her nest as soon as he was gone. That night when he returned home he checked on the nest and there was no mother quail no sign that she had returned. Darrell dug out an old incubator he had, gathered the clutch and began the daily process of tending the eggs.
Out of the dozen eggs initially gathered, ten fluffy chicks successfully hatched. At first, Darrell kept them in his trailer installed in a cardboard box, open at the top, where they could eat and drink and run about safely while he was at work. Before long however, they started fledging and within a few days the little quail could fly and fly they did. Darrell came home one evening and there were the part fledged quail chicks, all over the living room. So he found an old screen to put over the top of the box thinking that would solve the problem but in no time they were able to find a way out. It was not so much them getting out that was the issue, other than the mess they made, but the trailer house had old, deep pile carpet and the little chicks would walk in their bedding, get out the box then have that pile carpet stick to their little feet. Darrell would have to gather up the chicks and gently wash their feet to remove the carpet fibers and such from them. This just would not do!
After a month of tending his brood, one Saturday Darrell felt it was time they had to be turned loose as the weather was now warm and dry, a grand environment for the chicks to begin their outdoor life. They could fly and were pretty independent by this time so he took them down to the fenced in garden area he had and turned them loose amongst last year’s detritus of vegetation where they would have cover and protection. Several hours later he could not stand it! He had to go and see how they were doing so headed off down to the garden to check on them. There was an old Juniper tree at the edge of the garden by the fence so he sat down at its base and called out: “Hey boys! Where are you?”… at that moment four or five little quail flew out of the vegetation and lit on his feet and lap! He sat there in contentment with “his boys” for a while feeling this was indeed a task accomplished. To this day he has a soft spot in his heart for little quail and hunter that he is, could not kill a quail if he had to… bless him!
